The Central European Dance Exchange 2005

Modeled after the Mississippi/Volga Exchange, the Central European Dance Exchange is a new project that was created in response to the success of Mississippi/Volga in creating artistically excellent new work and building new audiences for dance. In 2004, Link Vostok founder Lisa First received a Jerome Foundation travel grant to reserach contemporary dance forms in five Central and Eastern European countries. The regional focus of this new exchange grew out of the exciting new work she viewed and international contacts she developed during this trip.

Biennial Festival in Russia

Link Vostok is the sole western organizer and one of the co-founders of the International Festival of Movement and Dance on the Volga in Yaroslavl, Russia. This biennial event has held six increasingly successful international dance festivals since 1993. It brings together Russian, North American and European artists to engage in creative dialogue and expand and deepen their vision and experience of movement and dance. The festival includes daily performances, intensive workshops, and panels and group discussions on relevant topics such as ÒCross-Cultural ChoreographyÓ, ÒDance Writing and Contemporary Dance CriticismÓ, ÒContemporary Dance in Russia and Eastern EuropeÓ and more. Link Vostok has brought more than 400 western artists from the United States and Europe to participate in this festival.

Cross Cultural Exchanges In addition to our festival program, Link Vostok creates reciprocal exchanges between Russia and Eastern European and United States artists. For instance, over sixty Twin Cities dance artists, critics and nonprofit administrators have participated in Link Vostok exchanges. In 2003, Link VostokÕs Mississippi/Volga Dance Exchange gave Minnesota artists the opportunity to expand and build upon their artistic skills through choreographic collaborations, performances and workshops with four Russian dance companies and Russian dance photographer Vladimir Lupovskoi. Resulting work was performed to sold-out crowds, many of them first-time dance audiences, at the Southern Theater.
ÒA delightfully diverse group of modern, improvised and theatrical dances. Much of the work is the result of collaborations between Russian artists and Twin Cities dancers and choreographers, emphasiz(ing) the value of that cross-pollination of movement vocabularies and cultures.Ó (Camille LeFevre, Star Tribune)
Link Vostok has also actively produced performance events at the Russian State Art Museum five times in St. Petersburg, Russia and at Kannon Dance and School festivals and events, also in St. Petersburg.